Thursday, September 29, 2011
To highlight some of the critical work being done at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre, we gathered some of our top scientists, students, lab techs and dedicated volunteers, who turned on the music - and danced!
To highlight some of the critical work being done at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre, we gathered some of our top scientists, students, lab techs and dedicated volunteers, who turned on the music - and danced!
Thanks to our proud sponsor, Medicom, a donation will be made for each hit to support advances in cancer research at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre.
Visit:
http://cancercentre.mcgill.ca/
To make a direct gift,
1) Click on the Donations tab at the top then
2) Go to "online giving" in the middle of the page.
Thank you for your tremendous interest and support!
Mike Harris Ernie Eves now Tim Hudak we have seen this before!
Mike Harris and the "Common Sense Revolution"
Harris catapulted his party from third place to an election victory, running on a neoliberal platform known as the "Common Sense Revolution" that highlighted a number of "wedge issues" and promised significant tax cuts, cuts to welfare, the introduction of workfare, and privatization of social services. Harris went on to win a second majority in 1999 despite the strikes and protests that plagued his first term in office.
The Harris government was criticized on issues such as health care, the environment, education, and its tax policies, though it remained generally popular until Harris's departure as party leader.
The slide in Conservative support began in early 2000, according to the Ipsos-Reid polling company (Ipsos-Reid website), when the Tories fell behind the Liberals in the public opinion polls for the first time since the 1999 election, with 36% support of those polled, compared to 42% for the Liberals and 17% for the NDP. Later in 2000, Liberal support rose to about half of those polled, while Conservative support remained in the low 30s. This pattern held through to the 2002 leadership campaign, when Conservative support rose to 37%, while the Liberals retained the support of about half of those polled.
Ernie Eves: distancing the party from the "Common Sense Revolution"With the resignation of Mike Harris in 2002, the PCs held a leadership election. Ernie Eves, who had been Harris' Minister of Finance, and who had the backing of almost all PC MPPs, won the campaign, defeating his successor as Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty.
Eves was a Red Tory, unlike Harris. He'd tried to blunt some of the edges of the more radical elements of Harris' platform while in Cabinet. His rejection of the "Common Sense Revolution" continued after he became premier. He killed plans to sell off Hydro One when deregulation of energy prices resulted in a dramatic increase in energy rates and threatened a consumer revolt. This led him to re-impose retail price controls on electricity, capping the price at 4.3 cents per kilowatt/hour, and vowing to keep it capped until at least 2006. The result was a quickly escalating public debt that made up for shortfalls in the price of electricity.
During the summer after Eves’ election as leader, the Conservatives closed the gap in popular support considerably, placing only two percentage points behind the Liberals in two summer public opinion polls. By the autumn of 2002, however, Eves’ ‘honeymoon’ with the voters was over, and the party fell back in the polls, hovering in the mid-to-high 30s, while the Liberals scored in the mid-to-high 40s.
Harris catapulted his party from third place to an election victory, running on a neoliberal platform known as the "Common Sense Revolution" that highlighted a number of "wedge issues" and promised significant tax cuts, cuts to welfare, the introduction of workfare, and privatization of social services. Harris went on to win a second majority in 1999 despite the strikes and protests that plagued his first term in office.
The Harris government was criticized on issues such as health care, the environment, education, and its tax policies, though it remained generally popular until Harris's departure as party leader.
The slide in Conservative support began in early 2000, according to the Ipsos-Reid polling company (Ipsos-Reid website), when the Tories fell behind the Liberals in the public opinion polls for the first time since the 1999 election, with 36% support of those polled, compared to 42% for the Liberals and 17% for the NDP. Later in 2000, Liberal support rose to about half of those polled, while Conservative support remained in the low 30s. This pattern held through to the 2002 leadership campaign, when Conservative support rose to 37%, while the Liberals retained the support of about half of those polled.
Ernie Eves: distancing the party from the "Common Sense Revolution"With the resignation of Mike Harris in 2002, the PCs held a leadership election. Ernie Eves, who had been Harris' Minister of Finance, and who had the backing of almost all PC MPPs, won the campaign, defeating his successor as Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty.
Eves was a Red Tory, unlike Harris. He'd tried to blunt some of the edges of the more radical elements of Harris' platform while in Cabinet. His rejection of the "Common Sense Revolution" continued after he became premier. He killed plans to sell off Hydro One when deregulation of energy prices resulted in a dramatic increase in energy rates and threatened a consumer revolt. This led him to re-impose retail price controls on electricity, capping the price at 4.3 cents per kilowatt/hour, and vowing to keep it capped until at least 2006. The result was a quickly escalating public debt that made up for shortfalls in the price of electricity.
During the summer after Eves’ election as leader, the Conservatives closed the gap in popular support considerably, placing only two percentage points behind the Liberals in two summer public opinion polls. By the autumn of 2002, however, Eves’ ‘honeymoon’ with the voters was over, and the party fell back in the polls, hovering in the mid-to-high 30s, while the Liberals scored in the mid-to-high 40s.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
CSIS Canadian spies teamed up with the Gadhafi regime to question a Canadian jailed in Libya, a prominent human-rights group says.
Canadian spies teamed up with the Gadhafi regime to question a Canadian jailed in Libya, a prominent human-rights group says.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers travelled to Libya several times to interview the prisoner between 2002 and 2005, Human Rights Watch says. The New York-based group will circulate a statement on Wednesday revealing that it has obtained documents on this obscure case from an abandoned intelligence complex in Tripoli.
Mustafa Krer, 56, immigrated to Canada from Libya in the 1990s. He was jailed as a terrorism suspect when he returned to his homeland almost a decade ago. Released only last year, he hopes to return to Canada in coming months.
He maintains that Western intelligence agencies, including CSIS, came to put questions to him after the Libyans locked him up in 2002. “Seven Canadians and seven Libyans – I was there, and they did it together,” he is quoted as saying in a Human Rights Watch statement. He says he was tortured by Libyan guards when no outsiders were looking.
This account is “deeply troubling,” said Andrea Prasow, a lawyer for the group. “CSIS did not torture Krer, but they must have known the Libyans probably did.”
CSIS has long insisted it neither arranges arrests nor condones torture. It defends its partnerships with foreign spy services, even ones controlled by repressive dictators, as necessary to save Canadian lives.
The Globe and Mail reported this week that a Conservative government minister thanked Libya for putting its “extensive intelligence networks” to work for Ottawa in 2009.
Federal agents, including CSIS, had been in Africa earlier that year working their contacts in hopes of rescuing two captive Canadian diplomats. The two hostages were released after 130 days in the Sahara. Yet U.S. envoys cabled Washington to complain that Canadian officials facilitated a secret ransom deal that enriched terrorists and jeopardized West African security.
Canadian court documents alleged that Mr. Krer was a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member and was spotted meeting some al-Qaeda-linked suspects in Canada.
CSIS spokeswoman Tahera Mufti said in an e-mail on Tuesday that she couldn’t address specifics, but pointed out the LIFG “is an organization listed as an entity associated with al-Qaeda” by the United Nations.
Mr. Krer doesn’t deny that he has LIFG ties – in fact, he recently told a reporter he was a fundraiser for the group in its nascent phases.
While several of his former comrades became al-Qaeda militants, others are leading the rebel militias that NATO warplanes are backing in the effort to rid Libya of Moammar Gadhafi.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, several Arab-Canadians were put under CSIS or RCMP surveillance and accused of having ties to al-Qaeda. Many were jailed when they flew to their homelands.
Some are suing Ottawa for complicity in torture.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers travelled to Libya several times to interview the prisoner between 2002 and 2005, Human Rights Watch says. The New York-based group will circulate a statement on Wednesday revealing that it has obtained documents on this obscure case from an abandoned intelligence complex in Tripoli.
Mustafa Krer, 56, immigrated to Canada from Libya in the 1990s. He was jailed as a terrorism suspect when he returned to his homeland almost a decade ago. Released only last year, he hopes to return to Canada in coming months.
He maintains that Western intelligence agencies, including CSIS, came to put questions to him after the Libyans locked him up in 2002. “Seven Canadians and seven Libyans – I was there, and they did it together,” he is quoted as saying in a Human Rights Watch statement. He says he was tortured by Libyan guards when no outsiders were looking.
This account is “deeply troubling,” said Andrea Prasow, a lawyer for the group. “CSIS did not torture Krer, but they must have known the Libyans probably did.”
CSIS has long insisted it neither arranges arrests nor condones torture. It defends its partnerships with foreign spy services, even ones controlled by repressive dictators, as necessary to save Canadian lives.
The Globe and Mail reported this week that a Conservative government minister thanked Libya for putting its “extensive intelligence networks” to work for Ottawa in 2009.
Federal agents, including CSIS, had been in Africa earlier that year working their contacts in hopes of rescuing two captive Canadian diplomats. The two hostages were released after 130 days in the Sahara. Yet U.S. envoys cabled Washington to complain that Canadian officials facilitated a secret ransom deal that enriched terrorists and jeopardized West African security.
Canadian court documents alleged that Mr. Krer was a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member and was spotted meeting some al-Qaeda-linked suspects in Canada.
CSIS spokeswoman Tahera Mufti said in an e-mail on Tuesday that she couldn’t address specifics, but pointed out the LIFG “is an organization listed as an entity associated with al-Qaeda” by the United Nations.
Mr. Krer doesn’t deny that he has LIFG ties – in fact, he recently told a reporter he was a fundraiser for the group in its nascent phases.
While several of his former comrades became al-Qaeda militants, others are leading the rebel militias that NATO warplanes are backing in the effort to rid Libya of Moammar Gadhafi.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, several Arab-Canadians were put under CSIS or RCMP surveillance and accused of having ties to al-Qaeda. Many were jailed when they flew to their homelands.
Some are suing Ottawa for complicity in torture.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Opposition MPs seized on newly released documents to blast the Harper government Monday for not providing more information on last year’s G8 summit in Muskoka.
OTTAWA—Opposition MPs seized on newly released documents to blast the Harper government Monday for not providing more information on last year’s G8 summit in Muskoka.
The confidential documents unveiled by the NDP reignited charges that then auditor general Sheila Fraser was misled about how $50 million in taxpayers’ money was disbursed.
“Canadians look to the auditor general to protect their interests,” said New Democrat MP Charlie Angus. But “we have a government that appears to have misled the auditor general and thinks they can get away with it.”
In a scathing report released in June just after Fraser retired, interim auditor general John Wiersema painted a disturbing picture of how Conservative MP Tony Clement and several confidants hand-picked the G8 legacy projects that ultimately got $45.7 million in federal funding. The report said there was no evidence federal government officials took part in the normal vetting process to determine which projects qualified for grants.
But confidential emails from Muskoka-area townships, including a fresh batch disclosed by the NDP Monday, indicate high-level involvement by federal officials along with Clement in the disbursal of the G8 money.
Angus told reporters that Wiersema’s staffers told him their conclusions were based solely on information from senior government officials in various federal departments. Angus said the auditors appeared frustrated.
Based on the emails uncovered since June by NDP researchers, he said, “the auditor general’s report is meaningless” because it lacks detail on how the millions in federal cash was handed out.
“Clearly, a lot of people went out of their way to steer the auditor general down the wrong path,” Angus said.
He said it’s clear that Clement and other government officials “did not pass on the documents (to the auditor general) that showed their direct involvement” in the decision-making for funding grants.
As well, he says federal auditors were told there was no paper trail for the projects when in fact written funding requests were funnelled through Clement’s constituency office.
“The auditor general was lied to,” Angus said.
Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said the new information should prompt the auditor general to reopen the probe of summit spending.
“The auditor general unwittingly gave information to the House which was not entirely correct and the reason that she did so was because she got false information from government officials — or from somebody,” Rae said.
Ghislain Desjardins, a spokesperson for the auditor general, said there are no plans to reopen their audit, calling it a “one-time” report.
However, Wiersema is scheduled to appear before a Commons committee Wednesday and is certain to get asked about the new revelations about how the summit cash was handled.
Angus said the emails indicate Clement had little use for the normal government checks and balances on spending when Ottawa was disbursing millions into the Muskoka region in advance of the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville.
The NDP said one of the emails suggests Clement (then federal industry minister) concurred with Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty that bureaucrats at Infrastructure Canada were getting in the way by conducting a review of planned G8 spending.
Doughty wrote to Clement, saying “this is totally unacceptable — I am sure you agree,” according to the email. Clement responded, “I agree. I’m working on it.”
The New Democrats have accused the Conservatives of setting up a “parallel” funding process deliberately organized to skirt normal government oversights when Ottawa handed out the G8 legacy fund in Clement’s Parry Sound-Muskoka riding last year. Clement is now Treasury Board president.
Clement has denied any wrongdoing in connection to the $50 million fund. The Conservatives have acknowledged that the federal auditor general was right to conclude in June that the funding process lacked transparency and accountability.
The confidential documents unveiled by the NDP reignited charges that then auditor general Sheila Fraser was misled about how $50 million in taxpayers’ money was disbursed.
“Canadians look to the auditor general to protect their interests,” said New Democrat MP Charlie Angus. But “we have a government that appears to have misled the auditor general and thinks they can get away with it.”
In a scathing report released in June just after Fraser retired, interim auditor general John Wiersema painted a disturbing picture of how Conservative MP Tony Clement and several confidants hand-picked the G8 legacy projects that ultimately got $45.7 million in federal funding. The report said there was no evidence federal government officials took part in the normal vetting process to determine which projects qualified for grants.
But confidential emails from Muskoka-area townships, including a fresh batch disclosed by the NDP Monday, indicate high-level involvement by federal officials along with Clement in the disbursal of the G8 money.
Angus told reporters that Wiersema’s staffers told him their conclusions were based solely on information from senior government officials in various federal departments. Angus said the auditors appeared frustrated.
Based on the emails uncovered since June by NDP researchers, he said, “the auditor general’s report is meaningless” because it lacks detail on how the millions in federal cash was handed out.
“Clearly, a lot of people went out of their way to steer the auditor general down the wrong path,” Angus said.
He said it’s clear that Clement and other government officials “did not pass on the documents (to the auditor general) that showed their direct involvement” in the decision-making for funding grants.
As well, he says federal auditors were told there was no paper trail for the projects when in fact written funding requests were funnelled through Clement’s constituency office.
“The auditor general was lied to,” Angus said.
Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said the new information should prompt the auditor general to reopen the probe of summit spending.
“The auditor general unwittingly gave information to the House which was not entirely correct and the reason that she did so was because she got false information from government officials — or from somebody,” Rae said.
Ghislain Desjardins, a spokesperson for the auditor general, said there are no plans to reopen their audit, calling it a “one-time” report.
However, Wiersema is scheduled to appear before a Commons committee Wednesday and is certain to get asked about the new revelations about how the summit cash was handled.
Angus said the emails indicate Clement had little use for the normal government checks and balances on spending when Ottawa was disbursing millions into the Muskoka region in advance of the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville.
The NDP said one of the emails suggests Clement (then federal industry minister) concurred with Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty that bureaucrats at Infrastructure Canada were getting in the way by conducting a review of planned G8 spending.
Doughty wrote to Clement, saying “this is totally unacceptable — I am sure you agree,” according to the email. Clement responded, “I agree. I’m working on it.”
The New Democrats have accused the Conservatives of setting up a “parallel” funding process deliberately organized to skirt normal government oversights when Ottawa handed out the G8 legacy fund in Clement’s Parry Sound-Muskoka riding last year. Clement is now Treasury Board president.
Clement has denied any wrongdoing in connection to the $50 million fund. The Conservatives have acknowledged that the federal auditor general was right to conclude in June that the funding process lacked transparency and accountability.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
CSIS notes reveal how Canadian was kept in exile : the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has a big problem.
In the summer of 2004, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was suddenly faced with a big problem. Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian they suspected of having links to terrorists, was about to be set free after more than a year in prison in Sudan. Worse, from CSIS’s standpoint, he was headed home to Canada and the agency had no legitimate means to stop him.
Hours after Sudanese security forces hauled Mr. Abdelrazik out of his Khartoum prison cell on July 20 and drove him to a police house to await a prearranged flight leaving on July 22, CSIS’s top counterterrorist chief in Ottawa was on the phone with the head of security at Transport Canada to discuss the matter.
Margin notes on CSIS documents related to the conversation, marked “Secret” and now in the possession of The Globe and Mail, highlight the fact that Mr. Abdelrazik was only on a U.S. no-fly list – insufficient to keep him from returning to Canada. It’s unclear what transpired during the conversation, but soon afterward both Air Canada and Lufthansa abruptly cancelled Mr. Abdelrazik’s ticket home. He would spend another five years in forced exile.
The “Canadian Eyes Only” documents also reveal for the first time officially that U.S. security agents wanted Mr. Abdelrazik shipped to Guantanamo Bay. If CSIS managed to delay Mr. Abdelrazik’s return in 2004, it had the effect of buying time while U.S. agents worked to render him to the notorious camp for suspected terrorists.
The Central Intelligence Agency “from the very beginning … have made it known that their preferred option, and one which they will attempt to negotiate with the Sudanese, is to transfer Abdelrazik to the Guantanamo Bay military facility in Cuba,” according to the CSIS document.
The revelations raise new questions about the scope and legality of CSIS operations abroad and its treatment of Canadian citizens. In the summer of 2004, Maher Arar had only recently returned to Canada after more than a year of torture and abuse in Syria. His $10-million compensation package, a public apology from a humiliated government and the resignation of the RCMP commissioner were still to come, but if there was one lesson Canada’s security services had learned from the Arar fiasco it was that getting caught helping the United States render people for torture abroad was a monstrous mistake and ruinous to their reputations.
The newly obtained documents could bolster Mr. Abdelrazik’s $27-million lawsuit against the Canadian government if CSIS is found to have actively thwarted Mr. Abdelrazik’s return or tried to help the CIA’s effort to achieve its “preferred option” of sending him to Guantanamo Bay.
Other government documents have already implicated CSIS in Mr. Abdelrazik’s arrest and imprisonment in Sudan in 2003 after he left Montreal for Khartoum, ostensibly to visit his sick mother. In a 2009 decision, Mr. Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court of Canada ruled Mr. Abdelrazik’s imprisonment in Khartoum resulted “either directly or indirectly from CSIS,” a finding the agency stridently denies, but opted not to challenge under oath in court.
In a series of written questions, CSIS was asked whether it blocked or attempted to delay Mr. Abdelrazik’s return in 2004 or at any other time, and if doing so would violate its mandate and Canadian law. The agency declined to reply. “CSIS does not publicly discuss specific operational interests or activities, including investigative methodology,” said Tahera Mufti, the agency’s spokeswoman. Unlike CSIS’s blunt\and repeated claim that it has never arranged for the arrest or imprisonment of Canadian citizens, including Mr. Abdelrazik, overseas, CSIS would offer no such assurance about blocking their return home.
After his 2004 flights were mysteriously cancelled, Mr. Abdelrazik ended up spending another five years in forced exile – more than two in prison and more than a year in the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum – while the Canadian government refused to give him a passport to fly home. Only after a court ruling did he return in 2009 to his children in Montreal.
The new documents, coupled with thousands of previously disclosed papers, reveal a nasty, long-running battle between CSIS and consular officials. In the spring and summer of that year, a bitter bureaucratic struggle was waged between Canadian diplomats and Canadian spies. “Cda speaks [out] of both sides of mouth” is the frank, handwritten margin note on one of the documents.
At the time of the flurry of activity between CSIS and Transport Canada, Canadian diplomats backed by the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa were helping Mr. Abdelrazik. They regarded it as their consular duty to assist a citizen imprisoned aboard. They knew Mr. Abdelrazik had never been charged with a crime, although he had been a target of CSIS surveillance for years. They knew his wife had bought him a ticket home via Frankfurt on Lufthansa and Air Canada. And they were getting ready to issue the temporary passport so he could return home, as is the constitutional right of every citizen. They had even assigned a diplomat to fly home with him as an escort – a strong hint that they knew just how badly Canadian and U.S. counterterrorism agencies wanted to spirit him off to Guantanamo.
But if Mr. Abdelrazik made it back to Canada, there was no chance the CIA could talk the Sudanese into handing him over or spirit him off to Guantanamo, so the problem facing CSIS in July of 2004 was both urgent and delicate. Mr. Abdelrazik was on the verge of release, he had a paid-for airline ticket for July 23 from Khartoum to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, connecting to an Air Canada flight home.
There’s no public record of the July 20, 2004, conversation between Charles Coghlin, then CSIS’s acting director-general of counterterrorism, and Transport’s Canada’s top security official at the time, David Guimond. But a careful reading of the CSIS documents confirms the basic points. Mr. Coghlin provided a lurid case that Mr. Abdelrazik posed a danger. Handwritten margin notes make clear that the U.S. no-fly list wasn’t enough to block Mr. Abdelrazik’s return.
But over the next 24 hours, both airlines suddenly decided to cancel Mr. Abdelrazik’s reservation. Lufthansa’s station manager in Khartoum unexpectedly called the Canadian embassy and said the airline wouldn’t carry him. Air Canada followed. Air Canada declined to respond to written questions, saying it doesn’t comment on security issues. Lufthansa has not responded to the same questions.
The raft of CSIS allegations against Mr. Abdelrazik remain unproven and untested in court. He has never been charged, in either Canada or Sudan. By November, 2007, CSIS admitted in a formal letter to cabinet that it had no objection to Mr. Abdelrazik’s ongoing attempts to be removed from the UN terrorist blacklist. By then, CSIS said it had “no current substantial information regarding Mr. Abdelrazik.” The RCMP delivered a similar letter. Those admissions of an empty file stand in stark contrast to the unproven but damning descriptions CSIS was circulating in the 2004 documents as they apparently sought to prevent his return. Then CSIS disparaged Mr. Abdelrazik as an al-Qaeda operative “completely devoted to Islamic extremism” seeking “to die a martyr’s death.” It said he had plotted to blow up airliners and claimed to have found traces of powerful plastic explosives in his car, but didn’t explain why that hadn’t led to an arrest.
Not until 2009, after the Federal Court ruled that Ottawa had violated Mr. Abdelrazik’s right to return, did Ottawa finally issue him a temporary passport and send an RCMP officer to escort him home from Khartoum. Even then, there were fears at the highest political levels in Ottawa that U.S. counterterrorism agencies might attempt to intercept the plane and divert Mr. Abdelrazik to Guantanamo.
Washington was alerted to “Canada’s intense interest in knowing whether the U.S. would actively or passively obstruct Abdelrazik’s boarding in Sudan or in subsequent connecting flights,” according to secret U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks dated only days before his return in June, 2009.
Hours after Sudanese security forces hauled Mr. Abdelrazik out of his Khartoum prison cell on July 20 and drove him to a police house to await a prearranged flight leaving on July 22, CSIS’s top counterterrorist chief in Ottawa was on the phone with the head of security at Transport Canada to discuss the matter.
Margin notes on CSIS documents related to the conversation, marked “Secret” and now in the possession of The Globe and Mail, highlight the fact that Mr. Abdelrazik was only on a U.S. no-fly list – insufficient to keep him from returning to Canada. It’s unclear what transpired during the conversation, but soon afterward both Air Canada and Lufthansa abruptly cancelled Mr. Abdelrazik’s ticket home. He would spend another five years in forced exile.
The “Canadian Eyes Only” documents also reveal for the first time officially that U.S. security agents wanted Mr. Abdelrazik shipped to Guantanamo Bay. If CSIS managed to delay Mr. Abdelrazik’s return in 2004, it had the effect of buying time while U.S. agents worked to render him to the notorious camp for suspected terrorists.
The Central Intelligence Agency “from the very beginning … have made it known that their preferred option, and one which they will attempt to negotiate with the Sudanese, is to transfer Abdelrazik to the Guantanamo Bay military facility in Cuba,” according to the CSIS document.
The revelations raise new questions about the scope and legality of CSIS operations abroad and its treatment of Canadian citizens. In the summer of 2004, Maher Arar had only recently returned to Canada after more than a year of torture and abuse in Syria. His $10-million compensation package, a public apology from a humiliated government and the resignation of the RCMP commissioner were still to come, but if there was one lesson Canada’s security services had learned from the Arar fiasco it was that getting caught helping the United States render people for torture abroad was a monstrous mistake and ruinous to their reputations.
The newly obtained documents could bolster Mr. Abdelrazik’s $27-million lawsuit against the Canadian government if CSIS is found to have actively thwarted Mr. Abdelrazik’s return or tried to help the CIA’s effort to achieve its “preferred option” of sending him to Guantanamo Bay.
Other government documents have already implicated CSIS in Mr. Abdelrazik’s arrest and imprisonment in Sudan in 2003 after he left Montreal for Khartoum, ostensibly to visit his sick mother. In a 2009 decision, Mr. Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court of Canada ruled Mr. Abdelrazik’s imprisonment in Khartoum resulted “either directly or indirectly from CSIS,” a finding the agency stridently denies, but opted not to challenge under oath in court.
In a series of written questions, CSIS was asked whether it blocked or attempted to delay Mr. Abdelrazik’s return in 2004 or at any other time, and if doing so would violate its mandate and Canadian law. The agency declined to reply. “CSIS does not publicly discuss specific operational interests or activities, including investigative methodology,” said Tahera Mufti, the agency’s spokeswoman. Unlike CSIS’s blunt\and repeated claim that it has never arranged for the arrest or imprisonment of Canadian citizens, including Mr. Abdelrazik, overseas, CSIS would offer no such assurance about blocking their return home.
After his 2004 flights were mysteriously cancelled, Mr. Abdelrazik ended up spending another five years in forced exile – more than two in prison and more than a year in the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum – while the Canadian government refused to give him a passport to fly home. Only after a court ruling did he return in 2009 to his children in Montreal.
The new documents, coupled with thousands of previously disclosed papers, reveal a nasty, long-running battle between CSIS and consular officials. In the spring and summer of that year, a bitter bureaucratic struggle was waged between Canadian diplomats and Canadian spies. “Cda speaks [out] of both sides of mouth” is the frank, handwritten margin note on one of the documents.
At the time of the flurry of activity between CSIS and Transport Canada, Canadian diplomats backed by the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa were helping Mr. Abdelrazik. They regarded it as their consular duty to assist a citizen imprisoned aboard. They knew Mr. Abdelrazik had never been charged with a crime, although he had been a target of CSIS surveillance for years. They knew his wife had bought him a ticket home via Frankfurt on Lufthansa and Air Canada. And they were getting ready to issue the temporary passport so he could return home, as is the constitutional right of every citizen. They had even assigned a diplomat to fly home with him as an escort – a strong hint that they knew just how badly Canadian and U.S. counterterrorism agencies wanted to spirit him off to Guantanamo.
But if Mr. Abdelrazik made it back to Canada, there was no chance the CIA could talk the Sudanese into handing him over or spirit him off to Guantanamo, so the problem facing CSIS in July of 2004 was both urgent and delicate. Mr. Abdelrazik was on the verge of release, he had a paid-for airline ticket for July 23 from Khartoum to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, connecting to an Air Canada flight home.
There’s no public record of the July 20, 2004, conversation between Charles Coghlin, then CSIS’s acting director-general of counterterrorism, and Transport’s Canada’s top security official at the time, David Guimond. But a careful reading of the CSIS documents confirms the basic points. Mr. Coghlin provided a lurid case that Mr. Abdelrazik posed a danger. Handwritten margin notes make clear that the U.S. no-fly list wasn’t enough to block Mr. Abdelrazik’s return.
But over the next 24 hours, both airlines suddenly decided to cancel Mr. Abdelrazik’s reservation. Lufthansa’s station manager in Khartoum unexpectedly called the Canadian embassy and said the airline wouldn’t carry him. Air Canada followed. Air Canada declined to respond to written questions, saying it doesn’t comment on security issues. Lufthansa has not responded to the same questions.
The raft of CSIS allegations against Mr. Abdelrazik remain unproven and untested in court. He has never been charged, in either Canada or Sudan. By November, 2007, CSIS admitted in a formal letter to cabinet that it had no objection to Mr. Abdelrazik’s ongoing attempts to be removed from the UN terrorist blacklist. By then, CSIS said it had “no current substantial information regarding Mr. Abdelrazik.” The RCMP delivered a similar letter. Those admissions of an empty file stand in stark contrast to the unproven but damning descriptions CSIS was circulating in the 2004 documents as they apparently sought to prevent his return. Then CSIS disparaged Mr. Abdelrazik as an al-Qaeda operative “completely devoted to Islamic extremism” seeking “to die a martyr’s death.” It said he had plotted to blow up airliners and claimed to have found traces of powerful plastic explosives in his car, but didn’t explain why that hadn’t led to an arrest.
Not until 2009, after the Federal Court ruled that Ottawa had violated Mr. Abdelrazik’s right to return, did Ottawa finally issue him a temporary passport and send an RCMP officer to escort him home from Khartoum. Even then, there were fears at the highest political levels in Ottawa that U.S. counterterrorism agencies might attempt to intercept the plane and divert Mr. Abdelrazik to Guantanamo.
Washington was alerted to “Canada’s intense interest in knowing whether the U.S. would actively or passively obstruct Abdelrazik’s boarding in Sudan or in subsequent connecting flights,” according to secret U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks dated only days before his return in June, 2009.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Wrongly deported, Albanian family returns to Toronto after more than two years in hiding and fearing for their lives
Wrongly deported, Albanian family returns to Toronto after more than two years in hiding and fearing for their lives
Tabaj family returns. The Tabaj family arrives at Pearson Airport’s Terminal 3 yesterday after being allowed back in the country following a judge’s ruling that they were wrongfully deported. Seen here are parents Arjan and Anilda with daughter Maria and twin sons Kristian and Vincenzo. Staff Photo/IAN KELSO Timeline
November 1998 - The Tabaj family flees to Canada from their native Albania and file a refugee claim, fearing political violence in their home country.
May 1999 - The family abandons their refugee claim and return to Albania, thinking the unrest had died down and that they would be safe.
April 7, 2000 - Arjan Tabaj becomes the victim of an assassination attempt in Tirana, Albania - one that kills his best friend and brother-in-law and costs him his left leg (he now wears a prosthetic limb) and the use of his left arm.
January 2001 - The family returns to Canada using fake passports. They are repeatedly denied refugee claimant status due to their previously abandoned claim.
January 6, 2006 - Twins Kristian and Vincenco are born in Toronto.
November 2007 - Arjan and Anilda are each taken into custody and held in detention pending their deportation.
December 2007 - Wrzesnewskyj, then-Etobicoke Centre MP, pledges $5,000 out-of pocket to secure Anilda's release, so that she can spend Christmas with her children.
February 2008 - Arjan Tabaj is also released from detention, but the family's fight to not be deported continues. A petition is filed on the Tabaj family's behalf, urging Diane Finley, then minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to use discretion in deciding the family's fate under section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
February 2009 - With their deportation date scheduled for March 2009, the Tabaj's daughter Maria writes a plea to Stephen Harper to allow her family to stay in Canada
- On Feb. 27 the Tabaj family's deportation order is indefinitely postponed to allow them to complete several immigration applications. The family's status hinges largely upon the ministry's decision on a humanitarian application and a pre-removal risk assessment.
June 8, 2009 - The Tabaj family is deported to Albania, where they quickly go into hiding.
January 2010 - Tabaj family receive several death threats.
February 2010 - Arjan and Vincenco escape a drive-by shooting on the entire family with only minor facial scrapes following yet another assassination attempt on the family in Tirana, Albania. In a letter to Kenney later that week, Wrzesnewskyj once again pleads the family's case in light of recent events, asking the minister to allow temporary visitor permits to bring the Tabaj family to Canada and "remove them from harm's way and potential assassination."
May 2010 - Two applications (one a pre-removal risk assessment and the other a humanitarian and compassionate one) filed to Citizenship and Immigration Canada before the Tabaj family's June 8, 2009 deportation, get approved - more than a year after the family were forcibly flown back to Albania.
The process of bringing the family back to Canada, lawyers said at the time, should take no longer than a month to complete.
September 2010 - After CItizenship and Immigration Canada announces it is vacating the pre-removal risk assessment decision, Wrzesnewskyj makes the potentially dangerous call to go public with their plight yet again. He continues to demand answers as to why the government seems intent to continuing exposing the family to "unnecessary yet significant lethal risk."
August 30, 2011 - Justice Sandra J. Simpson orders that the Tabaj family be issued two-year Temporary Resident Permits (TRPs), and that the family's applications for permanent residence as protected persons be completed soon after their return to Canada.
Sept. 22, 2011 - The Tabaj family makes their safe return to Canada.
Tabaj family returns. The Tabaj family arrives at Pearson Airport’s Terminal 3 yesterday after being allowed back in the country following a judge’s ruling that they were wrongfully deported. Seen here are parents Arjan and Anilda with daughter Maria and twin sons Kristian and Vincenzo. Staff Photo/IAN KELSO Timeline
November 1998 - The Tabaj family flees to Canada from their native Albania and file a refugee claim, fearing political violence in their home country.
May 1999 - The family abandons their refugee claim and return to Albania, thinking the unrest had died down and that they would be safe.
April 7, 2000 - Arjan Tabaj becomes the victim of an assassination attempt in Tirana, Albania - one that kills his best friend and brother-in-law and costs him his left leg (he now wears a prosthetic limb) and the use of his left arm.
January 2001 - The family returns to Canada using fake passports. They are repeatedly denied refugee claimant status due to their previously abandoned claim.
January 6, 2006 - Twins Kristian and Vincenco are born in Toronto.
November 2007 - Arjan and Anilda are each taken into custody and held in detention pending their deportation.
December 2007 - Wrzesnewskyj, then-Etobicoke Centre MP, pledges $5,000 out-of pocket to secure Anilda's release, so that she can spend Christmas with her children.
February 2008 - Arjan Tabaj is also released from detention, but the family's fight to not be deported continues. A petition is filed on the Tabaj family's behalf, urging Diane Finley, then minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to use discretion in deciding the family's fate under section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
February 2009 - With their deportation date scheduled for March 2009, the Tabaj's daughter Maria writes a plea to Stephen Harper to allow her family to stay in Canada
- On Feb. 27 the Tabaj family's deportation order is indefinitely postponed to allow them to complete several immigration applications. The family's status hinges largely upon the ministry's decision on a humanitarian application and a pre-removal risk assessment.
June 8, 2009 - The Tabaj family is deported to Albania, where they quickly go into hiding.
January 2010 - Tabaj family receive several death threats.
February 2010 - Arjan and Vincenco escape a drive-by shooting on the entire family with only minor facial scrapes following yet another assassination attempt on the family in Tirana, Albania. In a letter to Kenney later that week, Wrzesnewskyj once again pleads the family's case in light of recent events, asking the minister to allow temporary visitor permits to bring the Tabaj family to Canada and "remove them from harm's way and potential assassination."
May 2010 - Two applications (one a pre-removal risk assessment and the other a humanitarian and compassionate one) filed to Citizenship and Immigration Canada before the Tabaj family's June 8, 2009 deportation, get approved - more than a year after the family were forcibly flown back to Albania.
The process of bringing the family back to Canada, lawyers said at the time, should take no longer than a month to complete.
September 2010 - After CItizenship and Immigration Canada announces it is vacating the pre-removal risk assessment decision, Wrzesnewskyj makes the potentially dangerous call to go public with their plight yet again. He continues to demand answers as to why the government seems intent to continuing exposing the family to "unnecessary yet significant lethal risk."
August 30, 2011 - Justice Sandra J. Simpson orders that the Tabaj family be issued two-year Temporary Resident Permits (TRPs), and that the family's applications for permanent residence as protected persons be completed soon after their return to Canada.
Sept. 22, 2011 - The Tabaj family makes their safe return to Canada.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Public Prosecution Service of Canada Drug Prosecutions data PPSC Annual Report 2010-2011.
Drug Prosecutions
Drug prosecution files represent a significant proportion of the PPSC’s total caseload. In 2010-2011, the PPSC handled 58,117 prosecution files related to offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Of those, 24,245 files were carried over from previous years, and 33,872 files were new. These prosecutions vary greatly in complexity; some are simple cases of possession of a few grams of marihuana, while others involve complex schemes to import quantities of cocaine or to make methamphetamine in a suburban neighbourhood for export.
PPSC prosecutors are often involved early in investigations to ensure that investigators receive timely advice on the techniques they are using and to ensure that the evidence is marshalled to permit a prosecution on the merits of the case.
Cases targeting criminal organizations have increased as a result of police forces focusing more of their efforts on investigations of such organizations. Trafficking in drugs is one of the primary activities of most organized crime groups.
In part because of changes in enforcement in recent years, the PPSC has seen an increase in the number and size of drug cases in certain parts of the country. In British Columbia, for example, a single case involved a seizure of over 1,000 kilograms of cocaine, and another involved a seizure of over 1,000 kilograms of ketamine. Taken together, eight other cases involved over 420 kilograms of cocaine, 75 kilograms of methamphetamine, 88 kilograms of opium, and 55,000 hits of ecstasy. The wholesale value of the drugs seized in these ten cases exceeds $75 million. The street value would be many times more.
Drug prosecutions can become time-consuming and complex. Lately, prosecutions that would have been relatively straightforward in the past have been prolonged as a result of motions focusing on the legality of the investigation, the constitutionality of the legislation or of the investigation, disclosure issues, allegations of abuse of process, or unreasonable delay.
High-complexity drug cases require a significant amount of PPSC resources. While such cases represented only 2.13% of staff counsel’s drug caseload in 2010-2011, they took up 35.38% of the litigation time dedicated to drug prosecutions.
Drug offences are often revenue-generating crimes, and thus continue to represent the majority of offences that lead to the forfeiture of proceeds of crime and property used to commit crime (“offence-related property”). In 2010-2011, the PPSC handled 2,176 cases involving either proceeds of crime or offence-related property (1,296 were carried over from previous years, and 880 were new). The proceeds or property at issue ranged from money used to buy drugs from an undercover officer to real estate bought with the proceeds of crime or used to produce drugs. A total of $35.6 million of proceeds of crime and offence-related property was forfeited during 2010-2011.
Addiction-motivated crime presents particular challenges. To try to reduce the revolving door of crime committed to feed an addiction, federally funded Drug Treatment Courts have been established in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Ottawa. As well, a community-funded Drug Treatment Court operates in Calgary. These courts focus on the supervised treatment of the offender. Prosecutors work with judges, defence counsel, treatment providers, and other personnel to cooperatively but accountably deal with the issues raised by the conduct of offenders diverted to these specialized courts.
PPSC prosecutors currently staff all of Canada’s Drug Treatment Courts with the exception of the Regina Drug Treatment Court, which is staffed by prosecutors from the Ministry of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan.
Project E-Pandora
Following a two-year investigation into the East End Charter of the Hells Angels (EEHA), 18 people were arrested and charged with a variety of offences connected to the production and trafficking of methamphetamine in association with a criminal organization.
The last of the trial matters concluded in the spring of 2010 with Randall Potts and John Punko (both EEHA members) pleading guilty to conspiracy to produce and traffic methamphetamine and trafficking cocaine. The trial judge ruled that the federal Crown was estopped (prevented) from proceeding on the criminal organization charges. The PPSC appealed the sentences and the estoppel ruling. In February 2011, the B.C. Court of Appeal increased both sentences and ordered a new trial for Mr. Punko and Mr. Potts on the criminal organization offences.
Drug prosecution files represent a significant proportion of the PPSC’s total caseload. In 2010-2011, the PPSC handled 58,117 prosecution files related to offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Of those, 24,245 files were carried over from previous years, and 33,872 files were new. These prosecutions vary greatly in complexity; some are simple cases of possession of a few grams of marihuana, while others involve complex schemes to import quantities of cocaine or to make methamphetamine in a suburban neighbourhood for export.
PPSC prosecutors are often involved early in investigations to ensure that investigators receive timely advice on the techniques they are using and to ensure that the evidence is marshalled to permit a prosecution on the merits of the case.
Cases targeting criminal organizations have increased as a result of police forces focusing more of their efforts on investigations of such organizations. Trafficking in drugs is one of the primary activities of most organized crime groups.
In part because of changes in enforcement in recent years, the PPSC has seen an increase in the number and size of drug cases in certain parts of the country. In British Columbia, for example, a single case involved a seizure of over 1,000 kilograms of cocaine, and another involved a seizure of over 1,000 kilograms of ketamine. Taken together, eight other cases involved over 420 kilograms of cocaine, 75 kilograms of methamphetamine, 88 kilograms of opium, and 55,000 hits of ecstasy. The wholesale value of the drugs seized in these ten cases exceeds $75 million. The street value would be many times more.
Drug prosecutions can become time-consuming and complex. Lately, prosecutions that would have been relatively straightforward in the past have been prolonged as a result of motions focusing on the legality of the investigation, the constitutionality of the legislation or of the investigation, disclosure issues, allegations of abuse of process, or unreasonable delay.
High-complexity drug cases require a significant amount of PPSC resources. While such cases represented only 2.13% of staff counsel’s drug caseload in 2010-2011, they took up 35.38% of the litigation time dedicated to drug prosecutions.
Drug offences are often revenue-generating crimes, and thus continue to represent the majority of offences that lead to the forfeiture of proceeds of crime and property used to commit crime (“offence-related property”). In 2010-2011, the PPSC handled 2,176 cases involving either proceeds of crime or offence-related property (1,296 were carried over from previous years, and 880 were new). The proceeds or property at issue ranged from money used to buy drugs from an undercover officer to real estate bought with the proceeds of crime or used to produce drugs. A total of $35.6 million of proceeds of crime and offence-related property was forfeited during 2010-2011.
Addiction-motivated crime presents particular challenges. To try to reduce the revolving door of crime committed to feed an addiction, federally funded Drug Treatment Courts have been established in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Ottawa. As well, a community-funded Drug Treatment Court operates in Calgary. These courts focus on the supervised treatment of the offender. Prosecutors work with judges, defence counsel, treatment providers, and other personnel to cooperatively but accountably deal with the issues raised by the conduct of offenders diverted to these specialized courts.
PPSC prosecutors currently staff all of Canada’s Drug Treatment Courts with the exception of the Regina Drug Treatment Court, which is staffed by prosecutors from the Ministry of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan.
Project E-Pandora
Following a two-year investigation into the East End Charter of the Hells Angels (EEHA), 18 people were arrested and charged with a variety of offences connected to the production and trafficking of methamphetamine in association with a criminal organization.
The last of the trial matters concluded in the spring of 2010 with Randall Potts and John Punko (both EEHA members) pleading guilty to conspiracy to produce and traffic methamphetamine and trafficking cocaine. The trial judge ruled that the federal Crown was estopped (prevented) from proceeding on the criminal organization charges. The PPSC appealed the sentences and the estoppel ruling. In February 2011, the B.C. Court of Appeal increased both sentences and ordered a new trial for Mr. Punko and Mr. Potts on the criminal organization offences.
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